La tourine!

Being in holiday is fantastic: it gives one more time to draw! I spent one week in the Tourine, which is officially the most awesome place ever. I got to spend time with some great people I'd barely met before, and I'm grateful for that.

<- That's Alice, who is without doubt a cat. She didn't let me come closer than 5 meters from her during the whole stay. I am still struggling with a deep feeling of rejection. Sniff.

I have a definitive crush for the Loire area. The blue slate roofs, the white walls made of tuffeau. There's a timeless feel to each village there.

.. And here's Lili, the cutest kitten ever - and very much aware of that fact.


Thanks again to my uncles for their welcome, and to my little cousins for being awesome!

The Dutch Series -1. The Weather.

Whoever plans to move to a new country does a lot of reading, a lot of internet browsing, and a lot of asking around. When I moved to the Netherlands, I heard and read quite a few things about the country and its people- some I later found  to be true, some not. To celebrate my 4th year in this flat country, I have decided to review a few of these preconcieved ideas through my french eyes' prism. 

To introduce the series, a relatively mellow prejudice: the weather... 

Dans la forêt sans heures...

Delft, the city of little red bricks and blue porcelain.

Drawn with my precious fountain pen and Pelikan brown ink. Oh, and a water brush, and actual quality drawing paper, unlike the one used in the previous post.

And winter is coming.

A little drow

A comission for a roleplay drow character. It had been a while.

True story

And that is why you will never see me wear that white sweater anymore.

Blijdorp

Notes: klipspringer = litteraly "rock jumper", in Afrikaans/Dutch.
Rough translation of the end song: "Forgive me if I offend you, misters from the whole of France, this song is important to me, I don't quite like hunters." Song from Mannick again.

Blijdorp is, of course, the beautiful zoo of Rotterdam- really worth the visit!

Happy easter to anyone who celebrates it!

Fanart- Castle Waiting.

When I realized that Castle Waiting had in fact been published for years, and that I was only now discovering it, I felt a bit like arriving at a party after everyone's left.

Because it's awesome.

It's a graphic novelish series published in 2 tomes, which are quite difficult to find so I ended up with one tome in English, one in French. If you have any choice in the matter, don't read it in French. I ended up guessing most of the original jokes from the weird translation choices.

So what do fairy tale characters after the story ends? Sounds boring. Is not. Linda  Medley's art is beautiful, lively, in complete coherency with the text. If you can find it, get it.  I don't very often get so hooked on graphic novels that I keep reading and re-reading them, but I have the two volumes on my desk still now. (The other graphic novels falling in this category would be, in very different styles: Watchmen and Maus.)

Also: if I ever, ever manage to draw like this woman, I can die in peace.
Wikipedia page
Article from someone who liked it too, with some page samples.

Une vie ne vaut rien...

Listening to the news is rarely a particularly cheerful  experience, but this week has been even worse than usual. I didn't even add the latest horror story, because I heard it only after I drew this comic. Rescuing snails is my way of protesting against the ruthlesness of the world.

The title is a quote from André Malraux, "une vie ne vaut rien, mais rien ne vaut une vie" (a life isn't worth anything, but nothing is worth a life.)